It takes a special kind of skill to get that many people to unite against you

Bell tolls at the Commons ... as fed-up Britain is failed by its shambolic elected representatives

How the hell did we get here? Two and a half years ago, the country spoke. But it turned out there was one thing beyond the public’s influence: their own elected representatives. Can a Parliament be in contempt of the people? Yes, and every wretched, wearisome drawnout debate, denial and deceit that led up to the historic Commons vote on Theresa May’s deal last night has proved it.

“Would it not be easier for the Government to dissolve the people,” jibed despairing Brexiteer MP Richard Bacon, quoting the playwright Bertolt Brecht. Shhh. Don’t say that, Richard. You’ll only give them ideas. A bell was tolling outside the House of Commons, rung by eager Brexiteers, determined that its peals of freedom would be heard within. Some hope.

What a disgraceful shambles last night was. It wasn’t just the extraordinary scale of the defeat. Even in their direst imaginings the whips can’t have foreseen Mrs May’s deal being obliterated by 230 votes. That’s not a loss, it’s a Nuclear Event; the biggest slap across the chops to any government in British political history. It was the debate that preceded it in which MPS demonstrated that despite voting for the referendum, despite promising to deliver its result in both Labour and Conservative manifestos, they still didn’t care to implement the people’s decision. It would be hard to imagine a circumstance where you had a greater concentration of arrogance and mediocrity under one roof.

“Just get it done,” pleaded Lucy of Bristol, speaking for millions on the BBC News. “No managers in a top company would ever get away with letting this mess happen,” snapped a woman in a focus group. “I just want it to be over,” said Josh, a climber, “I’m just tired of it.” And so say all of us.

Like passengers stuck on a rocking boat on a querulous sea for 31 months, the British people longed to feel stable land underfoot. To stop feeling sick, tossed about by warring tribes. But nothing was decided last night. Again. Uncertainty was the only thing we could be sure of.

Michael Gove quoted Game of Thrones, warning that if MPS voted against the Withdrawal Agreement, “Winter is coming”. If only the Brexit negotiations had been led by Daenerys Targaryen and her pet dragons with their obliterating breath. At least they

would have scorched Michel Barnier’s bottom. Instead we have Mrs May. It takes a special kind of skill to get that many people to unite against you at a time of national crisis. She looked stony last night, eyelids lowered like the statue of some early Christian martyr. Her enemies may have unleashed their arrows into her, but St Theresa forges on, bloodied but unbowed. At least she didn’t say, “Nothing has changed”. Instead, she claimed she was going to listen. A bit bloody late for that.

The PM and Parliament have spent over two years not listening to the people, and that’s why we find ourselves in this godawful mess.

Today, her Government faces a vote of no confidence from the Opposition. Pah! The PM has already survived one from her own side. She will carry on carrying on.

There was one spectacular speech yesterday that brimmed with passion and hope. Unfortunately, it wasn’t by the Prime Minister. Dominic Raab, the former Brexit minister, said he wanted his little boys, aged four and six, to know “that we fearlessly chose the path for their future, that we did not wearily duck the challenge and make our peace with managed decline”. “I vote for the temerity to gain the mastery of our own destiny,” he said and for a moment you felt the shiver of something superb. That thing was leadership. We remember it when we hear it. If Mr Raab could miraculousy become PM then all might yet be well.

Hard on such a historic day not to sympathise with Tory MP Andrew Murrison who decided to vote, with a

‘Her enemies may have unleashed their arrows into her, but St Theresa forges on, bloodied but unbowed’

heavy heart, for Mrs May’s deal. “After the sophistry, chicanery and obfuscation of last week, I genuinely fear we won’t have Brexit at all,” he said sadly.

That may be closer to the truth than we can yet bear to know. And outside the Commons, a bell rang out for freedom. So many hundreds of MPS refused to hear it, but they will not be able to stay deaf to the people for ever. Never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.